Breeze Along the Boulie is a road ride that was started by members of the St Kilda Cycling Club in 2012. The group started as an informal club ride aiming to give women members another route option besides the popular Beach Road ride. At the beginning 2-5 St Kilda members began riding the Kew Boulevard as a women’s only bunch. From there, the group became affiliated with Breeze and the ride was advertised to the wider community.
CASE STUDY
Breeze along the
T
Boulie
he Breeze Along the Boulie ride is designed as a pathway for women with riding experience into club riding. The main aim of the group is to create a supportive and welcoming environment for women to take up road riding and in doing so increase fitness, improve health and boost confidence. The group now has a steady core group of 8-10 women each week who range between 20-60 years of age. The leaders constantly use social media (Twitter, Facebook and emails) to connect with the riders opening up opportunities for discussion and to build friendship and respect between participants. Most of the riders are members of one of the Melbourne metro clubs and a few have joined a club since joining the Breeze ride. Many of the current club members joined the ride as they wanted to improve their skills and confidence to join club races or bunch rides. There have also been a few women who were thinking about joining a club so the Breeze ride offered them experience road riding and link into a club. Currently the weekly ride consists of two laps (28km) of the Yarra Boulevard on a Tuesday morning with the aim of improving bunch riding skills, hill climbing, descending and cornering techniques. Depending on the group numbers the leaders may introduce some variations on surrounding streets to better cater for differing levels of experience. After the ride the women go to a local cafe for a well-deserved tea/coffee/hot chocolate and chat before everyone heads off to start their day. Although the leaders are happy with the current program there are ideas for developing more ride options and increasing partnership with the St Kilda club.
CASE STUDY
A
lison is one of the two main Breeze Leaders at Breeze Along the Boulie. She is currently highly involved in the St Kilda Cycling Club as a rider and in the role of Welcoming Officer. When she started road riding in 2007 Alison was one of a small number of women riders in her club. On reflection, Alison says becoming a Breeze Leader was a way to give back to the sport and show appreciation to the women who helped her gain confidence as a rider. Through Breeze she believes she now has a unique opportunity to provide the same support she received. Alison clearly remembers what it’s like to start riding and how intimidating large groups of men and strong female riders can be. Breeze Along the Boulie is about seeing and creating those “I never thought I’d be able to do that” moments for the riders (and the leaders!). As a Breeze Leader Alison has experienced many “ahhh! Moments” including seeing women improve their skills and confidence and complete challenging climbs with ease. She says it’s great to see the women “sweep round the hairpin bend with ease and confidence. It’s great to see that they get that excited feeling I do”. Alison says the main challenge in developing the ride is being conscious of terrain and safety of the group. As a leader she needs to be constantly assessing participants and their skill levels, particularly as the route the group completes is quite challenging due to sharp corners and steep hills. For this reason there are always two leaders to ensure no one is left behind. She says leaders need to :
Alison’ s Experiences as a Breeze Leader
‘
‘
Start with a plan but then be flexible and adjust it if needed. Factor in some social time...a coffee shop is a great place to finish up. Be prepared... which also means preparing for some of the worst case scenarios so make sure you have emergency contacts & some basic first aid supplies with you. Finally, enjoy the ride, because if you are having fun that is pretty contagious.
Alison believes the Breeze program has helped to speed up the process to get women riding by creating friendly and supportive groups. Overall it is a great way of giving women the confidence to put themselves out there and help other women. In the future Alison says it would be good to see increased opportunities for networking between Breeze Leaders and groups across Victoria. She says it would be good if the Breeze program provided more of a network for women to connect over all types of cycling.